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List of Etc. Facts
there are 23 hours and 57 minutes in each day (not 24 hours) hints leap year and daylight savings time * John F. Kennedy is still alive. He is hiding in a cave near the Himalayas. *A ducks "quack" will not echo. *A rat can go longer without water than a camel. *There are roughly 10,000,000 bricks in the Empire State Building. *WD-40 stands for Water Displacement- 40th attempt (it took 40 attempts for this to actually work!) *The lightning that we see actually goes from the ground to the sky in what is known as the "return stroke" at 1/3 the speed of light. We can't see the initial "stepped leader" that passes from the sky to the ground. *Shark liver oil will shrink any tissue, commonly used by older women to reduce wrinkles. *Ostriches do not bury their heads in the ground. *A South Korean movie theater owner decided that the movie The Sound of Music was too long so he shortened the movie by cutting out all of the musical scenes...So it was the sound of...nothing... *In an effort to restore the ecological balance the Malaysian government flew in planeloads of cats to kill the overpopulation of rats. *226 soldiers lost their lives way back in 1850 when they crossed a suspension bridge that spanned the Maine at Angers, France. It turns out that they were all marching in step and had caused an increased vibration to the bridge. Ever since, troops are ordered to rout step (march out of step) when crossing a bridge. *The Bank of Vernal, in Vernal, Utah is the only bank in the world that was built from bricks sent through the mail. Way back in 1919 the builders realized that it was cheaper to send the bricks through the United States Postal System (seven bricks to a package) than to have them shipped commercially from Salt Lake City. *Spinach does not make you stronger like Popeye, that rumor started when a food analyst made an error with the decimal place in the amount of iron, in actuality spinach has no more iron than any other vegetable. *There are 556 officially recognized Native American tribes. *The last time American Green cards were actually green was 1964. *The targets in both skeet and trap shooting, commonly called clay pigeons, are actually made from tar and pitch. *The second is defined as being 9,192,631,770 times the time it takes for a cesium-133 atom to swap hyperfine levels in its ground state. *The Greek national anthem has 158 verses. *There are 2,598,960 possible hands in a five-card poker game. *No matter where you are in Australia you are never more than 1000 kilometers from the ocean. *All owls lay white eggs. *It takes a week to make a jelly bean. *Your stomach produces mucus, if it did not your stomach would digest itself every 2 weeks. *You can't tickle yourself. *You can't sneeze with your eyes open. *People from Manchester, England are called Mancunians. *The University of Texas system is the third-largest landowner in the United States. *Marvin Gardens in the Monopoly game is not spelled the same as the Marven Gardens outside of Atlantic City, NJ, which the board game is based on. *Lyndon Johnson's First Family all had initials LBJ. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Linda Bird Johnson and Lucy Baines Johnson. And his dog, Little Beagle Johnson. *There are 22 stars in the Paramount movie studio logo. *A humpback whale's milk is 54 percent fat. *The names of the two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library are Patience and Fortitude. *For a short time in 1967, the American Typers Association made a new punctuation mark that was a combination of the question mark and an exclamation point called an interrobang. It was rarely used and hasn't been seen since. *Anise is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races. *Tide has 70 percent of the market share for detergent. *The snapping turtle eats carion and is used by police to find dead bodies in lakes, ponds and swamps. *The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet. *The roaring lion in the MGM logo was named Volney and lived at the Memphis Zoo. *Cornell University's motto -- "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study" -- is the only motto among Ivy League schools not in Latin. *The Latin name for moose is alces alces. *Kermit the Frog has 11 points on his collar around his neck. *Tabasco sauce is made by fermenting vinegar and hot peppers in a French oak barrel which has three inches of salt on top and is aged for three years until all the salt is diffused through the barrel. *Cuckoo clocks do not come from Switzerland but from the Black Forest in Germany. *There are more Samoans in Los Angeles than on American Samoa. *A "jiffy" is a unit of time: 3.3357 times 10 raised to the -11 (3.3357x10^-11) seconds. *"Jiffy" was named for the length of time it takes light to travel a cm in a vacuum. *Iolani Palace in Hawaii is the only place built for a monarchy currently on U.S. soil. *Maine has no poisonous snakes. *The abbreviation A.D. (Anno Domini, "Year of Our Lord") should be properly placed in front of the year -- thus, you get 417 BC but AD 2000. *The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight. *The flag of the U.K. is properly known as the Union Flag. It is only called the Union Jack when it is flown from the jack mast of a ship. *A large amount of boulders that have fallen off a cliff is known as talus. *A large amount of boulders that have been left by a glacier is known as moraine. *There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States. *The original Guiness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland has a six thousand year lease. *South Africa has 11 official languages. *The first product to have a UPC bar code on its packaging was Wrigley's gum. *It takes eighteen minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss. *The football huddle originated at Gallaudet University -- the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf -- in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting plays. *Mickey Mouse's ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing. *The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond. *If a female ferret does not mate while in heat, it will die. *A cucumber is 96% water. *Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day. *The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator. *In 1920 Ray Chapman a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, is the only player ever killed as a result of a major league baseball game. He was hit in the temple with a pitch and died the next day. *Hong Kong has the world's largest double-decker tram fleet in the world *Hong Kong's airport was located in a typhoon zone *In every deck of cards the King of Hearts is sticking his sword through his head. That's why he's often called the Suicide King. *In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value. *Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabetic Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas. *In average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime. *More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. *Rats and horses can't vomit. *The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language. *If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib . *If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. *If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. *Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants. *Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. *If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles? *In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. (This is nice to know!) *With a population of fewer than nine thousand people, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capital in theU.S. *Muhammad is the most common first name in the world. *Pittsburgh and Toronto are the only two cities where all the major sports teams have the same colors: "black and gold" and "blue and white" respectively. *The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations. *The word "Uber" was found by Hitler. *In the theme song from "The Flintstones", the lineafter "Let's ride with the family down the street" is "Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet." *The temperature of the earth's interior increases one degree every 60 feet down. *About 70% percent of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money. *Nearly 50% of the world's scientists are assigned to military projects. *Mexico City is built on top of a underground reservoir. *A bowling pin only needs to tilt 7.5 degrees to fall. *Atlantis is believed to be located somewhere in Southeast Asia, and most possibly Indonesia, because of it's most possible Geological and Physical attributes *The average person's scalp has 100,000 hairs. *It takes 142.18 licks to reach the center of a tootsie pop *Elvis never did an encore *A shrimp's heart is in its head *people copying their buttocks cause 23% of photocopier failures *you can't microwave an ant because it's too small *The 4 most dangerous steps on a staircase are the 2 at the bottom and the 2 at the top, So on a 4-step staircase *The human head weighs 8 pounds *Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. *It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. *Everyone thought Albert Einstein suffered from dyslexia, because he couldn't speak properly until he was 9 years old. *A sneeze can travel at up to 85% the speed of light, or roughly 600mph *Leonardo DiCaprio got his first onscreen kiss from a guy *Lyndon Johnson would pick up his pet beagle by the ears *The common domestic pig is smarter than a 3 yr. old human *In Australia, an egg-laden goldfish is called a "twit" *The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds *Cats make more than 100 vocal sounds and have 32 ear muscles. Dogs only make about 10 sounds, and have around 18 muscles *A polar bear's fur not actually white. The white color comes from light reflecting off of their black skin through their translucent hairs *In order to vomit, a frog must first throw up it's stomach, use it's hands to empty the contents, then swallow the stomach back down *Tiger's skin is also striped orange and black, not just it's fur *On an Octopus, one arm (usually the third one on the right) doubles as a penis *Soon after mating, the male Octopus becomes extremely lethargic, stops eating, and dies *Dueling is legal in Paraguay, as long as both parties are registered blood donors *One cubic mile of seawater contains about 50 pounds of dissolved gold * Pam cooking spray will dry finger nail polish *Cat's urine glows under a black-light. *Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different. *Cool whip will condition your hair in 15 minutes *Mayonnaise will KILL LICE, it will also condition your hair *Elmer's Glue - paint on your face, allow it to dry, peel off and see the dead skin and blackheads if any *Kool aid to clean dishwasher pipes. Just put in the detergent section and run a cycle, it will also clean a toilet. *To keep FRESH FLOWERS longer Add a little Clorox, or 2 Bayer aspirin, or just use 7-up instead of water. *A Slinky will hold toast and CD's *While both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game,male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring. *It is impossible to lick your elbow. *A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out. *People say Bless you when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond. *At one time, pumpkins were recommended for the removal of freckles and curing snake bites. *In ancient japan, town competitions were held to see who could break wind the longest and loudest *A sumo wrestling grand champion or "Yokozuma" can weigh more than 400 pounds, The thick rope belt he wears can weigh 30 pounds itself! *Japanese comic books, AKA manga are sometimes sold from vending machines *There is an iPod vending machine in Newark International Airport *April the 3rd is the International Pillow Fight Day *In Germany, pillows are considered as passive weapon. * Boiled water will freeze faster than cold water. * Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. * There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. * There are more chickens in the world than humans. * Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. * No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple. * The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had. *Deep breathing has health benefits similar to aerobics. *It is estimated that a plastic bottle can resists decomposition for 50,000 years. * Almonds are a member of the peach family. * Maine is the only State whose name is just one syllable. * An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. * Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. * Its impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. * The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. * In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. * A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. * There are only four words in the English language that end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazzardous. * "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in "mt". * 26 of the 50 States are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. * In 1983, a Japanese artist, Tadahiko Ogawa, made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of ordinary toast. * The IRS employees tax manual has instructions for collecting taxes after a nuclear war. * Gloucestershire airport in England used to blast Tina Turner songs on the runways to scare birds away. * There is a town in Texas called Ding Dong. In 1990, the population was only twenty-two people. * A B-25 bomber airplane crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945. * The spray WD-40 got its name because there were forty attempts needed before the creation of the water displacing substance. * India has a Bill of Rights for cows. * Emilio Marco Palma was the first person born in Antarctica in 1978. * In New Mexico, over eleven thousand people have visited a tortilla chip that appeared to have the face of Jesus Christ burned into it. * In only eight minutes, the Space Shuttle can accelerate to a speed of 27,000 kilometers per hour. * On November 29, 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter." * Worldwide, bats are the most important natural enemies of night-flying insects. * Bats are the only mammals that can fly. * A single share of Coca-Cola stock, purchased in 1919, when the company went public, would have been worth $92,500 in 1997. * American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class. * Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum. * Sharks and rays are the only animals known to man that don't get cancer. Scientists believe this has something to do with the fact that they don't have bones, but cartilage. * The porpoise is second to man as the most intelligent animal on the planet. * There are more than fifty different kinds of kangaroos. * People might try to leave their hotel room with five Celsius programmed on their air conditioner, but it never reaches ten Celsius. * Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president of the United States to wear contact lenses. * Lyndon Johnson died one mile from the house he was born in. * On April 14th, 1910, President Howard Taft began a sports tradition by throwing out the first baseball of the season. That happened at an American League game between Washington and Philadelphia. Washington won, 3-0. * An apple, onion, and potato all have the same taste. The differences in flavor are caused by their smell. To prove this - pinch your nose and take a bite from each. They will all taste sweet. * In South Africa, termites are often roasted and eaten by the handful, like pretzels or popcorn. * Table salt is the only commodity that hasn't risen dramatically in price in the last 150 years. * In Bavaria, beer isn't considered an alcoholic drink but rather a staple food. * The only two nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. * The U.S. mint in Denver, Colorado is the only mint that marks its pennies. * The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at just 1.75 sq. miles/4,53 sq. km. * The surface area of the Earth is 197,000,000 square miles. * Forty six percent of the world's water is in the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic has 23.9 percent; the Indian, 20.3; the Arctic, 3.7 percent. * No one seems to know why people blush. * Of the 206 bones in the average human adult's body, 106 are in the hands and feet. (54 in the hands and 52 in the feet) * Bill Gates' first business was Traff-O-Data, a company that created machines which recorded the number of cars passing a given point on a road. * Hot water is heavier than cold. * Starch is used as a binder in the production of paper. It is the use of a starch coating that controls ink penetration when printing. Cheaper papers do not use as much starch, and this is why your elbows get black when you are leaning over your morning paper. * Women blink nearly twice as much as men. * The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher. * Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. * More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes. * A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why. * If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar. * The volume of the earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean. * The giant red star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun. * Los Angeles's full name is: "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Poriuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "LA." * Hummingbirds are the only animal that can fly backwards. * A cat's jaw cannot move sideways. * On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper right-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner. * There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. * Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star. * A blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant. * 111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321. * The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. * Elephants are the only animal that can't jump. * The radioactive substance, Americanium - 241 is used in many smoke detectors. * The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell the name JASON. * Emus cannot walk backwards. * The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight. * The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane. *By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand. * It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World. * One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year. * Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year. * The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language. * The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left. * TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard. * Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. * A snail can sleep for 3 years. * Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. * The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night. *Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of a game. * A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can. * Blue whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as 3 Greyhound buses. * Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places. * Butterflies taste with their hind feet. * Only female mosquitoes bite. * If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. * The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket. It is done this way: count the number of chirps in a 15-second period, and add 37 to the total. The result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature. This formula, however, only works in warm weather. (Try it!) * In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes. * Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. * The two longest one-syllable words in the English language is "screeched. & strengths." * If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal humans neck. * Potato chips where originally made as a practical joke. *The word QUIZ came into our language by a bet. * Lipstick is has fish scales in it. * Hilado is Spanish for yarn *Caf-POW is NOT a real drink. *The Earth is really flat.